by Frank Tayell
His foot crunched on plastic. He looked down and saw the broken remains of a phone and, next to it, a small pool of dried blood. The people, the food, the fuel, the weapons, they were all gone. The bags had been left along with their personal possessions. The cars outside, though they were covered in grime and dirt, had windscreens and windows that were undamaged. No great horde of the undead had come through here. Why had they so hurriedly fled? Why hadn’t they called Anglesey to let them know where they were going? Why had they taken the bag of charcoal? His eyes fell on the broken phone. There was an obvious answer. The purpose of the safe houses was to find other survivors, and those survivors had come here. The team from Anglesey, not expecting danger from the living, had been overpowered and taken away. Where and why, Eamonn didn’t know and the car showroom offered no more clues. He went back outside, and headed due west.
Halifax Road led to Shirley Park Road. He assumed that meant a park was nearby. Open spaces might be easier to traverse, but four zombies staggered out of a fire-blackened terrace, and he was forced to turn around. Hurdis Road, then Delrene, and one street looked just like another. The undead were following him now, not on his heels, but he could hear them. So could the occasional undead in the houses ahead. A glass window broke, and a zombie toppled through, landing on a gravel driveway. The creature’s legs were twisted at an odd angle, clearly broken, but that didn’t prevent it trying to stand. Eamonn kept going, left and straight on, straight on and right, knowing that Birmingham had to come to an end soon.
He didn’t stop until he came to a pub opposite Yardley Wood train station. There were three bodies outside, and they had been shot. Had he not gone to the safe house first, he’d have assumed they were the undead. Had he not paused to look more closely, he wouldn’t have noticed that they’d been shot in the chest. There were head wounds, too, but each had a neat trio of bullet holes above the heart. One victim had an empty holster at his belt. Eamonn checked around the man’s neck. There was an identity disc, but again, that told him nothing more than that the man had once been military.
The doors of the pub were held closed by a bicycle D-lock. He walked a few paces closer. His foot crunched on charred plastic. The doors shook, and opened an inch. Necrotic fingers curled around the edge. Eamonn ran. Straight on and left, right and straight on.
The ragged shrubbery offered little cover, but it was the best Eamonn could find. Birmingham was as endless as London. Thirst was making itself known and the clouds above refused to storm so he’d begun looking in restaurants for soda-syrup. That was something he’d heard Jay talking about. It was more sugar than water, but it was better than nothing. He’d have to make do with nothing because that was all he’d found. When he’d seen the signs for Canon Hill Park, he’d followed them simply to get away from the houses and the undead.
He held his breath. Five feet of dense deciduous leaves, thorny branches, and an inch of railing away, he heard a shoeless foot slap against the pavement. The zombies drifted past, and all was still, at least in the immediate vicinity.
As he thought he was alone, he allowed himself to relax. The park was overgrown, a mixture of dead grass, thriving weeds, and bare trees ringed by giant drifts of leaves and occasional fallen branches. The conifers and pines were struggling, and he wondered if that was a sign of radiation damage. A goose flew overhead, disappearing deeper into the park.
He didn’t know what that was a sign of, but he followed the bird. The line of travel took him more north than west, but that didn’t matter. An hour here, a day there, he’d already lost so much time that, by now, someone else would already have set out from London. He wasn’t giving up his quest. As soon as he was out of Birmingham, he’d find a bike, find the railway that led to Holyhead, and be in Anglesey in two days. Three at most, five at the outside, but, realistically, he would arrive only to find that Greta was already there.
There was an alternative, of course, that he’d be the first to arrive at Anglesey, and that they would return to London to find everyone dead. Or perhaps he’d arrive at Anglesey and find the survivors all gone. He tried not to think of those alternatives. Instead, he focused his thoughts on why a bird might be flying north in the autumn.
He didn’t find the goose, but he did find a wide boating lake. There were feathers and plastic mixed in with the leaves floating on the surface, but it was water beneath. It would have to be boiled first, and that would take time, but he’d run out of it today. He’d take shelter in the first house he saw. He’d light a fire, boil the water, and fill himself with that. He took out the bottle from his belt, and knelt at the water’s edge.
“I wouldn’t do that,” a voice said.
Eamonn spun around. Twenty feet from him stood a woman wearing a blue jumpsuit smeared with dirt. In her hands was a crossbow. The bolt was aimed at Eamonn’s chest.
“I just needed water,” Eamonn said.
“You’re Irish?” the woman asked.
“From your accent, so are you,” Eamonn said.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
Eamonn wanted to ask her the same question, but she was the one with the crossbow. “I walked. I cycled. I didn’t mean to come into Birmingham, but I was lost.”
“It’s a hard city to miss,” she said. “Where did you come from?”
“London,” he said. “I left a… a month ago, I think. I’ve lost track of time.”
“A month? It’s only a hundred and twenty miles.”
“Zombies, you know how it is?” he said. “Do you live here?”
“Where were you going if you didn’t mean to come to Birmingham?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“Anglesey,” Eamonn said. The woman stiffened, and Eamonn realised that, for some reason, he’d given the wrong answer.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“Find a short version of it,” she said.
Uncertain what the right answer was, but knowing that another wrong one might result in a crossbow bolt through his chest, he opted for the truth. “There are a hundred of us in London. About half are children under twelve. Two of our group came through Anglesey. They said there were people there, and they have food, medicine, and a doctor. We need all three.”
“They might have it,” the woman said, “if they’re still there, but if they are, they won’t help you. They don’t help anyone.”
“You know about Anglesey?” Eamonn asked.
The woman looked him up and down, clearly trying to decide whether or not to believe him. Eamonn couldn’t imagine why she might think he was lying, not until he remembered the safe house with the discarded bags, and the bodies lying near the pub.
“It’s been a long month,” Eamonn said. “It’s been a long year. Right now, I’m tired, I’m thirsty, so if you don’t mind…” He turned around and began to kneel.
“There are zombies in the lake,” the woman said, almost casually.
Eamonn took a step back from the water’s edge. “Seriously?”
“Didn’t you see what happened to the bird?” she asked, gesturing at the feathers floating amid the scum. “The undead fell in when they followed me here yesterday. I don’t know why they haven’t died yet. I suppose they don’t breath. You want water? Here.” She took a bottle from her belt and threw it to him.
He fumbled the catch, and then drank half of it.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Wales is that way,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. “But you won’t find help there.”
“I’ve got to try,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any alternative.”
“No,” she said, “I mean I know you won’t find any help there. I’ve been following you, making sure you weren’t one of them. Your complete lack of skill almost made me think you were, but you’re not. I know you saw the bodies at the pub. They came from Anglesey, and no one came to look for them.” She looked at her watch. “Go to Wales if you want, or come with me, but
don’t stay here. It isn’t safe.”
She could have shot him without his ever knowing he was being followed, or not warned him about the zombie in the lake, or just left him be. Had she wanted to harm him, she could have. That she hadn’t didn’t mean she could be trusted. There was something odd about her. Something unsettling that Eamonn couldn’t put his finger on. Even so, he needed to rest. He needed supplies.
“Anywhere without the undead would be welcome,” he said. “I’m Eamonn Finnegan,” he added.
“Sorcha Locke,” she said.
They travelled in silence. Sometimes she was at his side, sometimes a step behind but she was always watching him, inspecting him, judging him. Against what and why, he wasn’t sure. When she stopped, he stopped. Sometimes he could hear the undead moving on the other side of a thin fence, at other times he could hear nothing. After ten minutes, but only a few hundred yards from the park, they came to a smoke-blackened five-storey apartment building. The ground floor windows were broken. Soot stained the walls. At the rear of the building, a zombie staggered towards a row of garages. Locke raised her crossbow, fired, and was slotting a new bolt home before the creature fell.
“Give me a hand,” she said, walking over to the corpse.
“A hand with what?”
“We have to move the body. We don’t want them to find it.” She pulled out a clasp knife and cut the bolt free. “Don’t just stand there. Be quick! The red door, open it.”
Reluctantly, certain he knew what lay inside, stealing himself against the stench, he heaved the garage door up. The interior was empty, at least of bodies. There was a plastic covered sofa-set, and an odd assortment of lamps and tables, but no undead. Locke dragged the zombie into the garage. They closed the door, and she kicked mud and leaves over the trail of gore.
“Why are we hiding the body?” Eamonn asked.
“Because if they find it, they’ll know I was here,” she said. It was an answer that explained nothing, before he could ask another question, she pointed at the apartment building. “There’s a door behind the bins.”
The door led to a fire escape and stairwell. She led him inside, up to the fifth floor, and into a two-room flat. The fire hadn’t reached it, but the smoke had, adding an acrid edge to the smell of damp seeping through the broken doors to the Juliet balcony. In the corner of the living room was a crib, with toys kicked against the wall. Three half-packed bags were in the kitchen, suggesting whoever had lived there had fled unwillingly and unprepared. Water stained the wall near the sink. A line of rust ran up the wall from the light switch to a recessed lamp. Mould bloomed on the carpet near the balcony, though it hadn’t spread to the leatherette sofa onto which the woman sat.
“Was this your home?” Eamonn asked.
“No,” Locke replied. “I found this building last week. I thought it might be a good refuge, but the structure isn’t sound. It’s a place to watch them, though.”
“Watch who?”
“Unless I’m wrong, they’ll pass by in half an hour.” She glanced at her watch. “Maybe a little longer.”
“Who will?” Eamonn asked.
“Tell me your story first, the long version this time.” She laid the crossbow on her lap, and though the bolt was pointing outside, Eamonn suddenly felt distinctly unarmed.
“The long version will take longer than half an hour,” he said, “but it began after the outbreak at a radio station in London. Things were… they were okay. Three people turned up. A soldier called Tuck, a boy called Jay, and an injured man called Stewart. Tuck made things…” He hesitated. At first, Eamonn hadn’t liked Tuck. At first, he’d dismissed her as a burden. At first. “She made things easier. She didn’t take over, or take control. It was clear that she could leave at any minute, but she stayed and because of that we thought it could work, right up until it didn’t. Water was the problem.”
“It always is,” Locke said. “How did you solve it?”
“By relocating to the Tower of London,” Eamonn said. “Getting it from the river proved to be more difficult than we expected. We spent half our days breaking wood for the boilers. Before we got to the Tower, some of us were trapped in the British Museum, and were rescued by Nilda, Jay’s mother. Now, she did take charge.”
“She wasn’t with you at the radio station?”
“Sorry, I’m not telling this in the right order. Jay and Nilda lived in Cumbria. They’d been separated just after the evacuation. Jay had left a note for his mother saying that he was going to London. He’d been born there, and he thought if there was anywhere in the world they might find one another again, it would be London.”
Locke gave a snort, more of amusement than derision. “He ran away to London? Some things don’t change, even after the apocalypse. The mother came south?”
“Nilda came via Anglesey,” Eamonn said. “After they were separated, she ended up on a Scottish— Radiation!” He snatched the dosimeter from his belt. It still showed the same reading as before. Locke looked at him quizzically.
“What?” she asked.
“The radiation! Everyone in Anglesey thought Birmingham was radioactive. I’ve been carrying this around, but I’m sure it’s broken.”
“The city’s not radioactive,” she said. “The nearest crater is outside Peterborough. You don’t want to go there. I’ve suspicions about Leicester, but didn’t have time to investigate it properly. We’re fine here. Anglesey thinks Birmingham is a glowing ruin?”
“They sent people here,” Eamonn said. “They lost contact. I think those are the people who were by the pub.”
“Some of them, yes,” Locke said. “They set up a base in a car showroom down near Yardley Wood.”
“Some of them? What happened to the others?” Eamonn asked.
“I’ll tell you when you finish, and your story isn’t finished yet. So you knew about Anglesey from Nilda?”
“And from Chester. He’d been with us in London originally, but left, ended up on Anglesey, and came back to England with Nilda. He helped her look for her son.”
“And they came to London and rescued you from the British Museum?”
“Some of us, yes,” he said.
“And?”
“And then we went to the Tower of London. We were low on fuel and food, and had no ammo or much of anything else. We decided to go to Kent to pick fruit from the trees before it spoiled. We took the boat, Chester, Greta, Me—”
“Boat?” she cut in. “You have a boat? What kind?”
“A lifeboat,” Eamonn said. “That’s how Nilda and Chester made it to London. They found it on a cruise ship in Hull.”
“A cruise ship? Were there any other ships there?”
“I don’t know,” Eamonn said. “Why do you ask?”
“Look around you,” she said. “Look at the ruins. Do you see a future here? So you went to Kent. How did you end up in Birmingham?”
“We found some food, not much, but then we found the children. They came from a boarding school. There had been hundreds of survivors in a millionaire’s mansion they’d turned into a farm. Over the months, everyone else had left or died. We managed to get the children back to the Tower, and we brought back some food, but not enough.”
“That’s why you’re going to Anglesey?” she asked.
“Partly. The other part is that someone shot Chester. He’s dying, and Hana, our vet, our doctor, is dead. That’s why I left. We were out of food and under siege. I should have reached Anglesey weeks ago, but I was trapped by a horde of the undead.”
“You won’t find help on Anglesey,” Locke said. “We came through there earlier this year. They tried to torture the information out of us. A friend of mine died. When did your people go through?”
“September.”
“Who was in charge on the island?”
“An old couple, I think,” Eamonn said. “I can’t remember their names.”
“They’re still alive? Well, they won’t be in charge. I barely made it out, and
no one came looking for the people, their people, that they sent here.”
“Because they thought Birmingham was radioactive,” Eamonn said.
“Which is a nice excuse to give as to why no help was sent,” Locke said.
“You think there’s another reason?” Eamonn asked.
“Of course,” Locke said. “Now, keep quiet. Watch.”
“Watch what?”
“Shh.”
She gestured out of the window. Eamonn walked over to it. Locke grabbed his arm and pulled him down. Even crouching, he could see the zombie in the street. A blue denim hat hid its head, but the sleeve of its green woollen jacket was torn at the elbow, its arm missing just below. Eamonn watched the zombie, uncertain why Locke thought it was somehow special. It looked like every other undead creature he’d seen. And then it collapsed.
A moment after that, a small group ran down the road. Six people, with a seventh following at the rear. Four carried assault rifles, three had double-barrelled shotguns. The front six ran with their weapons raised, almost as if they were trained for it. The one at the rear was moving more casually. He had close-set eyes, greasy black hair, olive skin, pockmarks on one side of his face, and an unlit pipe clenched in his teeth. The group of six ran to the corpse, spreading out, their attention on the surrounding buildings, but they never looked up. The pockmarked man waved them on, and they continued heading down the road. When they were out of sight, Eamonn turned to Locke.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“Do you know about Quigley?” she said. “Did you know he was behind the outbreak, behind the nuclear attacks?”
“I know he’s dead. Chester said so,” Eamonn said.
“Maybe Quigley’s dead, maybe he’s not,” Locke said, “but those people used to work for him. They’re his soldiers. His guard. They killed the people who came from Anglesey. They took their weapons. Before that, they took my warehouse.”